Industrial processes regularly require high water levels to flush, clean, cool and stabilise manufacturing processes. The water circuit when using mains can pick up contaminating particulates as well as transferring the process heat to the water, which once flushed down the drain, can have a number of consequences.
The cost of waste water is high and effluent water incurs additional charges due to the filtration required to re-introduce the water to the network. High temperature waste water can also incur additional charges to cover the temperature fluctuation and the knock-on effect to the sewage system. These implications can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds creating a huge impact on businesses.
Addressing these issues can not only help to improve a company’s green credentials but can also save money.
There are numerous ways to combat waste water, including converting open systems to closed systems by using chillers, adiabatic coolers and heat recovery, along with added filtration systems that can filter and cool waste water, reducing the cost implication to mains water users.
ICS Industrial Cooling has worked with customers with effluent waste water installing adiabatic coolers with plate heat exchanger and spin filters, helping to reduce water temperature from 52°C to 35°C. While the filter removes particulates, installing these ICS products has saved customers more than £100,000, which has paid for the cooling and filtration multiple times over.
In further projects, ICS Industrial Cooling has worked with customers to replace existing cooling towers with adiabatic coolers saving 67% in running costs, which extends to 74% when removing the effluent water charges.
Furthermore the build up of bacteria, such as legionella, that can breed in cooling towers is all but removed due to the closed circuit conditions that the adiabatic coolers use, significantly reducing the running costs and in many instances providing substantial savings even once the investment cost is offset. The adiabatic coolers supplied by ICS have been assessed and approved by the HSE.
In addition to saving costs, managing waste water in this way can have a favourable impact on a company’s green credentials that can further encourage green policy and future cost savings.
